


The Chop

by LittleMissWolfie



Series: Salman, Illinois [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Bullying, Gen, Implied/Referenced Bullying, mentioned Claustrophobia, small town AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 09:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14542212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissWolfie/pseuds/LittleMissWolfie
Summary: Pidge struggles for control in the aftermath of a particularly menacing bullying incident.





	The Chop

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, this is a story dealing with sensitive subject matter, so read at your own discretion if you may be triggered and let me know if I should tag anything I haven't already. The next piece I write for this series should be a lot fluffier than this, so we can get back to happy fun times soon!

Pidge can’t sleep. 

Her heart keeps racing and her mind won’t shut down. Her hands are still trembling. She hates it. 

She’s always hated feeling helpless. She’s the smallest and youngest and, for all but three months of the year, the only girl in her friend group. She grew up with an older brother constantly messing with her. Her feminine fashion preferences are usually at odds with her crude sense of humor and dangerous wit. She’s basically the perfect target for bullying. 

And there’s been bullying. Of course there has been. But this was different. 

She can’t shake off the feeling of being lifted up into the air, legs flailing in a fruitless attempt to free herself. She can’t close her eyes without seeing the claustrophobic inside of a blue locker, can’t inhale without the rawness of her throat reminding her of how her cries for help went unheard.

Her friends are all asleep on her bedroom floor, so she carefully steps around them on her way out the door. Luckily, Hunk’s mighty snoring drowns out any noise her bare feet make against the hardwood floor. She still holds her breath tight in her lungs, though, just to be safe.

The bathroom door only creaks a little when she opens it up, which is strangely fortunate for such an old home. She makes sure it’s shut behind her before she turns the light on and has to blink away the blurriness that comes with the sudden brightness. She takes a Dixie cup out of the holder, fills it with tap water, and downs it like a shot. The cool water burns her raw throat as it goes down, but her hands stop shaking, so that’s an improvement. Then she lets out a shuddering breath and meets her reflection.

Her hair is long. So, so very long. And she loves it. She loves the way her mom and her friends play with it. She loves feeling it brush against her shoulders and her back when she moves, loves the way it swings like a pendulum and can be used as a weapon when it’s in a ponytail.

But  _ they _ grabbed at it.  _ They _ pulled on it, yanking strands from her scalp and making it sting. It was caught in the locker door after it locked and she had to saw a chunk of it off with a chewed metal end of a pencil to get her head away from the door in order to achieve any sort of comfort in the small space. So now it’s uneven.

A reminder of her helplessness.

Angry tears bubble up again and she wipes them away with a force that leaves the underside of her eyes stinging.

Allura has long hair, much longer than Pidge’s. But Allura has bodyguards and has been trained in self defence and kickboxing and can bench press Pidge. She’s strong enough to protect herself. Allura would never be shoved in a locker and left there for over twelve hours.

Pidge looks at the frayed ends of where she cut her hair off. How it sticks out from the rest. And she’s done.

She creeps downstairs and grabs the kitchen scissors out of the bamboo knife block. Then she ducks into the laundry room, raises her chin at the mirror, and starts her work.

* * *

Pidge falls asleep on the couch in the living room around two in the morning, and is awoken by her mother shaking her shoulder.

She bolts upright, giving herself vertigo. Her mother looks shocked, her face whiter than usual, and Pidge suddenly remembers what she was doing before she fell asleep.

Her hand moves upward to grasp at the chopped ends of her hair. It ends below her ears now, choppy and jagged, but it feels like a weight has been lifted. She feels less helpless.

So she tells her mother, “I needed control,” and her mother nods and offers to clean it up for her before the others wake up. Then, when the ends are even and a little smoother, Pidge says, “I want to take self defense classes,” and her mother nods again and says, “I’ll sign you up on Monday.”

Then they fall silent. Pidge leans back into her mother’s comforting warmth, feels those arms she knows so well wrap around her, and she lets herself cry.


End file.
